It's not illogical. If you think it is, could you show how? — frank

I'm not sure what "it" refers to here. I thought my question suggested that I thought that my view that I am a brain in a vat is not illogical. That was intentional.

However, perhaps I haven't understood what you mean by "illogical". ?

Or perhaps you think that I think that the concept of a brain in a vat is illogical. I don't. It is a very odd description, somewhat like describing music on a violin as the sound of catgut vibrating. The overtones are clear - and no doubt deliberate.

Just assume that terrible things are going to happen at any time, and then when they do happen you won't be surprised. Does that help? — Antony Nickles

Thanks for your concern.

I'll just make sure that my back-ups are up to date and then get on with it.

As you don't quite say, bad things happen - and not only on the internet. Get Plan B in place and then get on with it.

Austin’s response was something like, “see the beetle is a something and a nothing, a clear contradiction.” — Richard B

That's interesting. But it is curious that Austin's reaction would suit Wittgenstein fine. The idea of private experiences makes them a something and a nothing, which is a contradiction. Ergo, the idea of private experience is self-contradictory. QED.

There is a difference between having no logical ground of believing in the existence of X, and the actual existence of X. — Corvus

I think the problem here is that you do not believe in the existence of unperceived objects and need an argument to prove them. I believe in the existence of unperceived objects and expect you to give me a reason not to. It's not a promising start for an argument, is it?

Berkeley doesn't do much better, either.



I think I'll wait and see what happens in VIII ff.

how would one know they are hacked when the point is for the hacker not to reveal they are hacking someone? — Antony Nickles

Well, that's a question. My antivirus does notify me about trackers, though. And ransomware needs to draw attention to itself.

Thanks for this.

Nothing's perfect. I find it reassuring that someone else has used the site and not come to visible harm. There's no guarantee that the anti-virus software is always right, either.



Thanks for the reassurance.

I will download the book.

Whatever you may say about brain in vat, it's not illogical, and neither is indirect realism. — frank

I am a brain in a vat. How could it be illogical?

I know I'm breaking the rules.

But we've retreated to dogma and playing games. However, the orthodox "brain in a vat" thought experiment is just a game as well, only it has a pompous name. That's my point. It works if, and only if, you follow the rules. But the rules are deliberately designed to force you to a conclusion. So it is not argument, as such. An argument proceeds from agreed premises to a conclusion, not from an assumed conclusion through a set of rules designed to enforce it.

Which makes me consider that one of Austin's motivations, that I grant appear hidden, is to find (or defend) a truth between metaphysical certainty and radical skepticism (which would make his concerns less than trivial). — Antony Nickles

That's a very interesting way of putting it. Austin has to be familiar with the doctrines. But it has to be part of a more complicated version of the official programme. That's not an objection.

If the context doesn't make it clear, [only] then I am entitled to ask 'How do you mean? . — Austin, Other Minds, p.87 (emphasis in bold added)

Somehow I think that Austin has not quite got his act together. I take it that he is concerned about, for example, the difference between appearance and reality, where there is a claim that nothing is real except appearances and the distinction between between the real and the unreal has been (in our view) over-generalized. He wants (needs to) rule that distinction out, (i.e. show that the question "How do you mean?" cannot be answered in this context). But he doesn't quite get that far.

There is no logical ground for me to believe the world exists during my sleep, because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness. — Corvus

Well, if you are asleep, I would have thought that you are not in a position to believe (or disbelieve) anything.

Well, what about dreams, you say? If dreams prove anything, they prove that if you do believe anything in your sleep, you would be well advised to review it when you wake up.

"because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness." You'll enjoy Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human knowledge or Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. You'll be disappointed in the end, though. The thing is, given that you cannot prove that things exist when you do not perceive them, you cannot prove that they don't, either.

I don't say that there are no cases where things cease to exist when I no longer perceive them. But I do say that there are some things that continue to exist when I no longer perceive them. On your account, you have decided that "exists" and "perceive" mean the same thing. I accept what I understand to be normal usage. We use the words in different ways. Why does it matter?

It is not something a priori problem. — Corvus

Sorry, I don't understand this. Typo somewhere?

I think the back of my head exists when I don't perceive it - which is most of the time. I think the other side of the coin I'm holding exists even though I don't perceive it. Will that do?

Therefore you cannot change the world or objects in the world with your words. — Corvus

Hey! There is something we agree on. So can we also agree that how we think about (conceptualize) our world changes us and therefore it? Or are we not part of the world?

But that was the impression being created and propagated by his blinded followers. — Corvus

OK. I have no brief to speak for his followers. Either we deal with them separately, or we ignore them.

There is connection between words and mental events and activities. — Corvus

.. and mental events are not part of the world?

If you're contemplating the possibility that you're in the Matrix, you can. — frank

If I'm contemplating the possibility that I'm in the Matrix, I'm also contemplating the possibility that the Matrix doesn't work. In fact, all those clever scientists have already informed me that the world is very different from what I think it is, so I know it doesn't work. But then, the whole business gets upset because I'm already in a brain in a vat.

See your imaginative conjectures? Who are "we"? Do we always change the world? With language? Can you change the tree on the road with your words? — Corvus

Well, the answer to your last question must be No. If you define the problem as the connection between words and the world, you have built that answer in to the question.

But what is at stake is not merely words and things, but how we think of things, and how that affects how we live. The concept of "the lived world" or, better, "the world as we live in it" is helpful here.

I suggest that we can recognize that the distinction between words and things may be useful and appropriate in certain contexts (A rose by any other name would smell as sweet) and that a generalization to everything in every context is extremely dubious, not to say puzzling.

Words are not separate from the world, but part of it; they are also things in the world. In any case, the focus on the relationship between words and (other) things is not always helpful. Not all words, to put it as constructively as I can, stand in the same relationship to things. How do you apply this idea to "and", "if", "not"? Anyway things are not the only things in the world (events, states, processes, etc. etc.). Are mental objects things in the world? Numbers? (No, they are not just words. Different languages use different words to refer to the same numbers.)

I note here that Austin also refers to "non-verbal" reality. In one way this is perfectly natural, and is provided for in natural (ordinary) language. In another way, it is very puzzling, because it can be taken as suggesting that no language can "fully describe" or "fully capture" the whole of reality. I'm sure Austin is fully aware of all that, so I assume that he intends to take advantage of what is provided for in natural language without saying anything about the generalization. I don't have an answer here and suspect that there can't be one. My preferred solution is that this is a false dilemma, but I don't know how to prove it.

You are right to point out that words don't do things. People do. But communication can only take place because they use words in the same way. Humpty Dumpty was partly right (think of that rose again) but also partly wrong. Communication would break down if you decided to use "platypus" in the way the rest of us use "rose" (without telling us) - and so on. Call it objective or inter-subjective, it is meaningful to talk about what "rose" and "platypus" mean.

The revolutions of Copernicus and Newton were not simply discoveries. They involved thinking about things in a different way. The effect on how (Western European) people thought of themselves in the world was dramatic. The revolutions of QM and Relativity also involved changing how we think of things and also profoundly affect how we think of ourselves in the world. Nor is it just a question of science. Religious and cultural movements can also bring about profound change and change the world that we live in. Luther's Reformation. Paine's defence of the common man. Capitalism. Marxism. That's where philosophy comes in.

Here, one cannot fail to notice the impression that the whole motivation seems to prove the opposing interlocutors views are either confused or wrong, rather than trying to see the issue from a fair, reasonable and constructive point of view. — Corvus

I think that is a bit unfair. Austin undoubtedly thinks that he is treating Ayer's view in a fair and reasonable way. "Constructive" is a bit more complicated. If someone claims to have devised a perpetual motion machine, what is the constructive way to treat their idea? (BTW, I think that Austin goes to impressive lengths to consider Ayer's views carefully, but, for the most part, is also right to criticize them.)

There's a copy of Ayer's Foundations at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.46395/ . — Banno

There it is!

But I'm running Norton's Anti-virus software. It warns me that connections to this site are not secure. Can you re-assure me that nothing disastrous will happen if I follow the link anyway?

I'm sorry, but I'm risk-averse, especially in the environment of the internet.

Thanks.

Of course you can ask that. But you are asking whether your cell phone as real. Maybe it's a dummy or a toy. But you can't ask if everything you see is real.

The classic case is produced by Ryle. You can ask of each coin in your pocket, whether it is a forgery. ;But you can't ask if all coins are forgeries. Because no coin can be a forgery unless there is a definition of what it is to be not forged. Actually, and more relevantly, you can't ask in general whether all x's are imitations, because what an imitation is, is defined by defining what is not an imitation.

I did try to explain here and here why Austin and Wittgenstein do not overtly argue for a certain case. — Antony Nickles

I'm sorry. Things go so fast here that I sometimes don't check as carefully as I should.

One point, however, is that we all want to get at the truth, find (explicate) something illuminating about ourselves and the world. — Antony Nickles

You make a good point in this paragraph.

Has anybody here actually read any Ayers? — frank

Good question. I've read various things that he wrote, but not this specific text. Now I know where to get hold of it. I will certainly read it - and I expect to change my views somewhat.

How would you characterize his metaphysics? — frank

Actually, that is a more difficult question than you might have thought. His first book, Language, Truth and Logic introduced Logical Positivism to the UK. That was already a movement that rejected traditional metaphysics and proposed logical analysis as the new method for philosophy, so Ayer would himself have claimed that his theory is not metaphysical. Nor was he the first to do so. Both Berkeley and Descartes made the same claim.

PS. On reflection, I think there is something important in the observation that Ayer also rejected (traditional) metaphysics. That means that we should look more carefully at Austin's critique of Ayer's "two languages" theory. I don't have time to do this now, but it seems to me now that his suggestion that Ayer assumes that the sense-datum language is more fundamental, more accurate, preferable to what he calls "material object language". He sees it as a version of traditional (i.e. metaphysical) views and references Berkeley. But Berkeley was against (traditional, for him) metaphysics and arguably also has a "two language" version of his theory. I don't have time to work this out right now, but it is more complicated that I had recognized. (Hume, so far as I recall, doesn't have a "two language" account of his system.)

What metaphysical truth do you see in that? — frank

None whatever. That's the point. What Ayer wants to do, can't be done. He wants to ask the question about anything that we see (in the normal sense of "see") whether it is real. Can't be done.

If someone tried to escape a check-mate by making a knight's move with the king, you don't make a counter-move, you protest that what he wants to cannot be done.

For me the key here was Davidson's A nice derangement of epitaphs. — Banno

Thanks. I'll add it to my reading list.

I don't think there are much in the way of metaphysical implications from Austin, — frank

Austin is denying there is "reality" (directly addressing the metaphysical), — Antony Nickles

all this dismissive talk of "just language" and "quibbling" — Antony Nickles

I think there is an elephant in the room. People do seem to have picked up the puzzle about why, if Austin wants to deny reality, he doesn't just come out with it. He seems to dance around the question with marginal and trivial comments on how the word "real" is used, and so forth. I think someone should at least try to explain why.

Metaphysical claims, if true, are necessarily true, which means that their contradictions are necessarily false; Epistemological claims are a priori true and hence a priori false. This undermines any idea that one can simply assert or deny such claims. True claims, whether they are necessary or a priori, exclude nothing and hence are trivial and empty; false claims could not possibly be true and hence are meaningless. So one cannot simply deny the claim that "the moon is made of green cheese" or "that 'twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe" or that "John is a married bachelor". Denying those claims requires that they be possibly true; but a metaphysical truth, if it is true, is logically true and there is no possibility that it is false, and vice versa. All you can do with any of those three examples is point out that they are meaningless. Similarly, if someone asserts that all we ever perceive is directly is sense-data all we can do is point out what "direct" and "indirect" mean in this context.

Philosophy is extremely difficult because it needs to establish common ground where there appears to be none. But for some reason one keeps on trying.

Thanks for that excellent summary.

A foot-note. There is an additional aspect to this desire for certainty. It is the tendency to universalize. Admittedly not everything is certain (sometimes our sense deceive us), but equally not everything is uncertain (sometimes our senses do not deceive us).

Why should we expect there to be one universal account of consciousness, dreaming, cogitation and such? — Banno

I'm not all that surprised that there is a variety of first person accounts of various mental phenomena. I'm sure that we all tend to fall victim to the assumption that everyone else is just like me. It's more dangerous when that assumption becomes the idea that everyone else ought to be like me or that there is something wrong when other people turn out to be different from me. (There's an overtone in the very terms "aphantasia" and "hyperphantasia" that I think is very dangerous. They are not necessarily pathologies.)

These are first person accounts, not objective reports. The fact that people give such accounts is important, but should not be taken to suggest that they are true, or at least it needs to be taken into account that they are unverifiable (not therefore meaningless). Compare the ways that the medical profession treats "I am in pain". Compare also the trouble that we have (should have) with dreams.

Language is for expressing, describing and communicating thoughts and the contents of perception. — Corvus

I'm afraid this triggers one of my hobby-horses. Language is also for expressing emotions, giving orders, consoling people, deceiving people, inspiring the troops, shaming wrong-doers and many other things. Focusing on one, admittedly important, use of language narrows the vision of philosophy and distorts the understanding of people living in the world.
There is, I believe, even an argument that the origins of language, assuming they lie in animal communication systems are severely practical things like expressing peaceful or aggressive intentions, making demands, expressing anger, fear, pleasure and pain and such.
The theoretical uses of language are not the core, but a derivative, and arguably still marginal, use of language.

The infinite regress is only avoided by stopping, which renders the capacity as still not understood, because we do not get to the bottom of it — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, this way of looking at an infinite regress has occurred to me. One issue is that once you have taken the first step, you need a reason for not taking the second step.... Or, you need a reason for stopping. The standard view of this, as I'm sure you are aware, is that the infinity of the regress is real, so that, for example, Achilles can never catch the tortoise or we can never acquire a disposition. Wittgenstein takes issue with this, but it is still regarded as a problem.

But we can probably agree that there is a feeling that simply to analyse a disposition (potential, capacity, ability, skill, tendency, liability, habit, custom) as a counter-factual that x would happen if... is not enough. But I notice that you never specify what would count as the bottom of it. But we do look for, and often find, a basis for the disposition. Petrol is flammable because its' molecular structure is such that it easily reacts with the oxygen in the air and so forth. Most ice floats because its molecular structure makes it less dense and therefore lighter, than water. But these are empirical discoveries. So the most that we can say is that a disposition includes the idea that there is a causal basis for the counter-factual, but no more than that. In the end, it's just an application of the principle of sufficient reason.

I know that's not very well argued, but I hope it is enough to suggest at least that there is an alternative view to yours.

My problem with your view is that, so far as I can see, your view of capacity and potential are wide open to the objection that Berkeley rightly levels against the scholastic idea of matter as pure potential and Locke's view that substance is something unknown - that it is empty.

So the math does not provide us with any higher degree of certainty about the world than other language forms, because it is applied according to principles stated in other forms of language anyway. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, mathematics applied to the world is subject to the same caveats and limitations as any other empirical knowledge. The idea of mathematics as something different is about pure mathematics and purely mathematical objects, like numbers.

Plato may have presented math as if it was supposed to be the standard, but then exposed problems with that presupposition, and in the Parmenides, he demonstrates problems with math's basic foundational concept, "one", or "unity". — Metaphysician Undercover

Thanks for this. But isn't it also true that the Theory of Forms presents an idea that seems to be a generalization of mathematics and provide a basis for his view that the things of this world are but shadows of reality? I would have thought that Plato was quite able to hold a view and recognize difficulties with it at the same time.

While Malcolm gives a little here, there is not much left over to compare whether a conscious experience of a dream is "qualitatively" similar or different to a conscious experience of being awake. — Richard B

Well, I would not say that there is never a give-away within the experience, so to speak. On the contrary, the fact that I seem to be flying might be regarded as a clue. But somehow, such clues seldom, if ever, get picked up. So it is not really the experience that doesn't give away the truth, but the experiencer who doesn't pick up the clues - until they wake up the following morning. But this doesn't amount to a dream-like quality that tells the dreamer what is going on.

I’m not sure where Austin put forward “this idea” of what we do in dreams. — Antony Nickles

The quotation from Austin is:- "I may have the experience (dubbed 'delusive' presumably) of dreaming that I am being presented to the Pope. Could it be seriously suggested that having this dream is 'qualitatively indistinguishable' from actually being presented to the Pope? Quite obviously not. After all, we have the phrase 'a dream-like quality'; some waking experiences are said to have this dream-like quality, and some artists and writers occasionally try to impart it, usually with scant success, to their works." pp. 48, 49.

It's the last sentence I take issue with.

Thanks for these links. I'll have a look at them.

I think you could say the same thing about Austin. His arguments have been largely ignored because the philosophical community continues to talk about qualia, what-it's-like-ness experiences, or the ontological subjective. — Richard B

The life of philosophy is debate, which requires a puzzle or a question. Solutions and answers end debate. Paradoxically, being right leaves nothing to say. So it becomes necessary to renew the puzzle.
Wittgenstein did not appreciate this, which is why he had to give up philosophy when he had written the Tractatus.

My main point in this post is to show how two linguistic philosophers supposedly analyzing the same ordinary language we all use, seemingly coming up with some fundamentally different conclusions. — Richard B

As usual, what was supposed to be a final authority becomes a subject of debate. No-one really likes a final authority. In some people, the prospect of a final authority triggers a desire to overthrow it.

I don't think this is cynicism. I think it represents some understanding of philosophy as a way of life.

Oh you said you don't get mental images. — Corvus

I'm afraid I have a mild form of aphantasia. You can speak for yourself, but not for me. — Ludwig V

What I said was that I don't always get mental images. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I call them up (especially when remembering) and sometimes I don't. I sometimes seem to recall images when I wake up in the morning; I have no way of knowing whether my report is accurate. BTW, there's no problem about dreaming "in language"; it's just telling a story (improvised); for me that usually happens when I'm awake, so it is called day-dreaming.

What I'm protesting against is the idea that necessarily one "sees" an image when imagining things, remembering things, etc and that "seeing" an image is always the same thing. The images I "see" when I remember something are not like the images I see on a screen or in a mirror and even less like the images I see in pictures, and when someone remarked, on seeing me and my brother together for the first time "Oh, there are two of you. You are the image of each other." (We are not twins and neither of us was impressed by this remark.) All these examples are different from the image of the monarch that appears on stamps, coins and notes in the UK.

I don't deny that we think, remember, judge, imagine, etc. etc. How could I? I'm not sure that I know what mental objects are supposed to be.

Perception will not bear the epistemological weight philosophers put on its shoulders. it needs help. — Banno

Yes. The search for certainty. Nothing can bear the weight of that.

It's in line with Wittgenstein, of course:
To repeat: don’t think, but look!
— PI, §66 — Banno

Just occasionally, I find I have to take issue with something that W says. The idea that it is just a matter of just looking, or collecting data, is far too simple. Wittgenstein gets us to look at things differently, to break out of the tyranny of philosophical knots. Austin gets us to see distinctions and differences that we overlook unless we are very careful. Both provide cases (examples) that are effective. They are not random. They are selected and constructed.

What is also true, though, is that their work is only to persuade us to do our work.

I was saying that if delusions, illusions are regarded as a type of perception, then why shouldn't seeing mental images in memories, imaginations, thinking and intuitions be thought of as a type of perception too. It was a suggestion, not a claim. — Corvus

Fair enough, and I can see why it might make sense. My reason for not accepting it is that perception (seeing, hearing, etc.) is always perception of something - hence the tendency to think about subject and object. That's how we get led astray. In the case of imagining something, there is no object - I mean that unicorns don't exist and that it is misleading to suppose that when we imagine unicorns we necessarily see something unicorn-like. (When we imagine or remember visiting the Parthenon, we are not visiting the Parthenon).

The issue is that the capacity to see, which is temporally posterior to learning how to see, is necessarily prior in time, to the physical act of seeing. Therefore the capacity to see cannot be reduced to the capacity to learn how to see, nor can it be reduced to the physical activity of seeing. — Metaphysician Undercover

But it seems to me that, just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, one action doesn't make a disposition, habit, tendency or addiction, and that I acquire the capacity or skill required to do many things by doing them or trying to do them. Your infinite regress suggests that I cannot acquire any capacity, and I don't believe that.

I understand folk like to say Malcolm is denying that we have experiences such as dreams, but I think we one needs to understand he is studying how we understand the concept of "dreaming" and what we can and cannot say about such a concept. — Richard B

Thank you for your posts about this. But I had the impression that he does deploy an argument about this, that experiencing something is incompatible with being unconscious and that being asleep is being unconscious.

I think you could say the same thing about Austin. His arguments have been largely ignored because the philosophical community continues to talk about qualia, what-it's-like-ness experiences, or the ontological subjective. — Richard B

Yes. I put it down partly to the conventional approach to philosophical education as initiation into traditional ways of thinking with the intention of inoculating students against infection. It doesn't seem to work very well, partly because breaking through, or out, of them is not a once-for-all job. But that pushes us back to Cavell's idea that the roots of philosophy lie deeper than was recognized at the time.

Austin seems to be saying that we somehow know the dream experience is "qualitatively" different than the waking experience, because as he says "How otherwise should we know how to use and contrast the words. — Richard B

Yes, and I think he is wrong about that. At least, he is wrong if he thinks that by inspecting the dream experience, we can reliably sort out whether we are awake or not. There's no reliable clue inherent in the experience that allows us to identify it as a dream - if there were, we would be dreaming it, so it wouldn't be reliable. That's why we insist, in the morning that these things did actually (seem to) happen. We tell the difference because the dream story doesn't fit with our waking life in the ways that our memories of yesterday fit with what happens in the morning.

Austin doesn't pay attention to the fact that children have to be taught to recognize that the wolves they dreamt of are dreams - that there are no wolves around one's house and one cannot really jump over tall buildings. Nor does he take into account that many societies do not believe that dreams are just false; they develop ideas that posit them as realities (gods, other worlds, altered states of consciousness) or develop interpretations that posit a kind of truth to them.

In "Dreaming" Malcolm does not ignore scientific considerations regarding dreams. He says the following: — Richard B

Yes. That's why I didn't attribute the resistance to him. It was an informal conversation, no more. But the question what we are to make of them stands, and the issue that the scientists, for the most part, as far as I have seen, seem to accept that we have experiences while we are asleep. But the issue remains that we are dependent on the dreamer's reports about what they are; dream stories are not independently verifiable. The scientific data here ought to be the reports, not the experiences reported.

Austin goes on to criticise the notion that there are preferred conditions for observations in which we can see the "real" qualities of some object. Again, by way of a series of examples he shows that it is not possible to make this approach coherent. — Banno

His demolition of that classic idea is an excellent piece of philosophical work.

But why don't they include mental images we see during our remembering, imagining, thinking, and intuiting? That was my question. — Corvus

Well, you may see them. But I don't think you can assume that everybody sees them.

I was saying that if delusions, illusions are regarded as a type of perception, then why shouldn't seeing mental images in memories, imaginations, thinking and intuitions be thought of as a type of perception too. It was a suggestion, not a claim. — Corvus

My best answer is that imagining something is not like my cases 1 (the real dagger) or 2 (the reflected dagger), both of which clearly count as perceiving something. It most resembles 3, (the hallucination, except that, of course, you are not fooled, deluded) in that there is no dagger nor image of a dagger involved. Isn't that good enough reason to say they are not perceptions?

Taking your question at face value: speaking for myself, I view it as an ability that can be used or not used. As one additional tool in the toolbox of cognition. It in no way interferes with any day-to-day cognitive process. — javra

So you don't see the route to the shops when you remember it? That's good. It could be confusing to see the route as you remember it and as it actually is at the same time. It is simpler and clearer to say that when driving the route, remembering it does not require any images, only correct actions as you go along. (It could also show as correctly telling someone else what to do.)

I'm less sure of what to say given the research about aphantasia. If I take it at face value, some people see something they call an image under circumstances I don't - or so they say. Other people don't - or so they say. Rather than rushing in, it seems best to pause for thought.

You visualise the cup in your mind, and are seeing mental images of the cup. — Corvus

I'm afraid I have a mild form of aphantasia. You can speak for yourself, but not for me.

See Wikipedia - aphantasia

I'm quite capable of thinking, remembering, imagining without seeing images. I'm glad of that. It enables me to drive to the shops, which involves remembering them, without seeing images that might interfere with driving safely. How do you manage?

The outline of how I think about this is here

Let me try to come at it this way. — Ludwig V

. There, I do consider the case of an actual image. My discussion of hallucinations deals with one form of mental images. I didn't consider this case. I'm reluctant to deny that people see something when they see mental images, because it seems that some people find them useful in, for example, problem-solving. However, in line with the empirical evidence, I do deny that people always see an actual image when they think about, remember, or imagine a cup.

I don't have a good understanding of the phenomenon. On the other hand, I have no problem saying that what one might call verbal thinking is just suppressed speech, as is reading silently to oneself.

The ability to perform that special activity is what defines "the perceiver" — Metaphysician Undercover

Wittgenstein, who would define having the ability to 'follow a rule' as someone who has been observed to have followed a specified rule, rather than as someone who has the capacity to follow that rule. — Metaphysician Undercover

Forgive me, but if I understand you rightly, you are using "following a rule" as an example, but intend what you say to apply to all actions. I don't want to get involved in what W might have meant or not meant in his argument about this. So, if I may, I shall talk in terms of another example.

I choose "walking across the room" as my example. I think that you intend what you say to apply to that as well. I asked myself whether you intend what you say to non-actions, to what are called dispositions. These are somewhat different in that the disposition of a stone to resist impact from other bodies is not acquired by the stone but is built in, so to speak, when the rock is formed. So there can be no disposition before the disposition, so your argument doesn't apply. So I'll assume that a capacity is a disposition that is acquired, as tempering changes the properties of iron (and so we call it steel).

Wittgenstein is faced with the question of what type of capacity exists prior to this. — Metaphysician Undercover

From this perspective, the capacity to perceive, what we are calling "the perceiver", must necessarily preexist the act which is implied here by the name, as the act of perception. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a fake puzzle, based on the fact that we tend to use "capacity" in an ambiguous way. We say of an infant that cannot yet walk, or of someone that has not yet learnt to drive that they cannot walk or drive, but that they have to capacity to learn to walk, or drive and in that sense, can walk or drive. The capacity to learn or otherwise acquire, as skill is distinct from the exercise of that skill. Your infinite regress, I'm afraid, is little more than a pun.

Except that we acquire many skills by practice. The infant learns to walk by trying and failing and gradually getting better at it. We learn to drive by sitting in the driving seat and trying to drive and gradually getting better at it. This learning process is built on what we already can do, but which we have not learnt to do. Infants can do various things from birth and even before birth. These are the result of the physical development of the body, and can be compared to the tendency of the stone to resist pressure - that is, they are dispositions, not capacities.

Instead, we must accept the obvious, much more highly, and truly intuitive principle, that the capacity to perceive, which defines "the perceiver" must be prior in time to any act of perception. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I explained above, the capacity to learn to see is indeed "prior to" the capacity to see, but is not the same capacity as the capacity to see.

He could just have said that perceptions can lack certainty in certain cases. — Corvus

But that is exactly what he does say. He makes a big fuss about it because Ayer argues for a conception of perception that eliminates the possibility of uncertainty at the cost of depriving us of the ability to see anything except what is in our own heads. That's the issue.

I feel that perception doesn't end there, but it activates the other mental activities — Corvus

That's perfectly true. But those activities are not perception, so I'm not quite sure what your point is.

For Ayers, the hallmark of indirect realism is divergence between the world as experienced by a human, and the world as it is. — frank

For Austin, if human experience lines up correctly with what one would expect from a certain POV, — frank

This would be one way of understanding the debate between them. But you are giving too much to Ayer and so missing the point of Austin's argument.

To put it this way, the phenomena here are more complicated that the straightforward distinction between experience and reality can deal with.

Let me try to come at it this way.

1. When Macbeth sees a dagger (i.e. there is a actual, real dagger that he sees), Austin would say that he sees the dagger directly.

2. But that only makes sense if we think of indirect ways in which he might see that dagger, such as via a mirror. In those cases, it makes sense to explain that what he sees (directly) is an image of the dagger and so, in a sense, is inferring that the dagger is there or is interpreting the image as an image of a dagger. Note that the relationship between an image of a dagger is quite hard to describe, but is not at all like the relationship between one dagger and another or the relationship between a dagger and its scabbard.

3. But in the play, there is no dagger, and no image of a dagger. We need to say that he does not see a dagger at all. And yet, he is behaving as if he sees a dagger, and he clearly believes he is seeing a dagger. What are we to say? Well, there is a word that covers this situation - "hallucination". But a hallucination of a dagger is not a real dagger and not a (real) image of a dagger. What, exactly, is a hallucination?

Ayer wants to say that Macbeth sees a dagger-like sense-datum and then wants to argue that what Macbeth actually sees (directly sees) in all three cases is a dagger-like sense-datum. He wants to sweep away the differences between these three cases into the same formula. I think he could justify saying the sense-datum is always what we see "directly". But then, he is extending "direct" and "indirect" and using them in a new context, so he has changed their meanings.

So you could say that they are talking past each other.

Ayer suggests is that to talk of sense-data is just an alternative way of representing the facts. Austin wants to argue is that this amounts to "anything goes" and compares Ayer to Humpty-Dumpty. He also suggests that Ayer doesn't really believe that the choice between the two ways of talking is indifferent.

I would say that the problem is that Ayer's way of talking buries the real differences between the cases.

For the record, to say that someone is hallucinating a dagger is to say that they are behaving as if there is a dagger and believes that there is a dagger when there is no dagger. No more than that. You can call that seeing a dagger or an image of a dagger, if you like, but I think that's just confusing. When people draw the conclusion that we never really see or know reality or that reality is nothing like what we think it is, it becomes absurd.

I was alluding to something along the lines of the extended mind idea. — Apustimelogist

I didn't know about this. I'll have to look at it carefully. It addresses some important considerations. However, I'm a bit suspicious of any attempt to locate "the mind" at all. It would be absurd not to acknowledge that I am located in space and time. But It is not obvious that the mind, as such, can be located in the same way, any more than numbers can.

Thanks very much for these posts. They were very helpful to me.

Secondly, words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can re-look at the world without blinkers. — (Austin, J. L. “A Plea for Excuses: The Presidential Address”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1957: 181–182

A good text, or a good writer, always has more than you think. It's curious how at one level, we understand what the metaphor is getting at (roughly). But on a second look, doubts creep in - and then doubts about the doubts. Perhaps we have to understand what he means by seeing what his practice is. Is this faute de mieux or what really counts?

What is offered by Austin is not a definition, but a method to test proposed uses. What we have is an antidote to the philosopher's tendency to push words beyond their applicability. — Banno

Yes, I think Hume identifies the same problem in relation to the argument from design. Only he calls it "augmentation". I think it's a very important point. I must try to find the reference.

So in outline, Ayer was looking for certainty, and in the process misused and muddled the terms and concepts he was working with. Austin's approach, along with others involved in the "linguistic turn", is to look for clarity over certainty. — Banno

Yes. That is clear enough in this context. I agree also that the detail of the pursuit of clarity becomes more complicated when we push beyond the outline. Ayer surely has views about clarity and certainty.

(I don't want to be obstructive here. I think Austin achieves his goal. I just want to be wary of "augmentation".)

There could be cases of illusion, hallucination, delusion, and confronting with the bogus objects which look like certain objects, but found out to be bogus, lookalikes, mistaken identities etc. Hence the contents of perception require further judgements of its "authenticity" to have assurance as legitimate knowledge. — Corvus

I suggest that Austin does not allow himself to be seduced by the cartesian sceptical argument into pursuing some perfectly assured certainty, which in the end destroys so much, but to notice that when things go wrong, there are ways of coping. Somewhat as, when you drive down a road, you have no assurance that the unexpected will not happen. But you are confident that you can deal with such incidents as and when they occur. That's particularly clear in his fourth point, that real is an adjuster word.

I don't think we are very far apart, though I need to enter a caveat that "perceive" covers a range of activities. After this discussion, we have to be a little cautious using that term.

I was using "interdependent" as a flexible term to cover the different relationships between those elements. So, yes, a perceiver is not just a perceiver but has an independent existence as, say, a creature with the capacity to perceive, not just a particular perception, but a whole range of different perceptions. But surely, the perceiver is only a perceiver as capable of exercising that capacity, just as parents are only parents in relation to their children, even though they are many other things that do not require any such relationship. If they don't have children, they are not parents.

And, yes, to understand that capacity we have to understand that creature, not only when perceiving this perception, but many different perceptions but also as capable of, and performing, many other actions as well. But surely, understanding the capacity requires also understanding the exercise of it?

Cheers. I hope I made a good effort after all. — javi2541997

You certainly did, and a very welcome one, too. Thank you.

But could I add that his little disquisition about ordinary language philosophy deserves some attention too. However, I would like to put this issue into the context of Aristotle's method. Since he had a strong background in Ancient Greek (and, no doubt, Latin), Austin must have been familiar with Aristotle. Aristotle was a great respecter (especially in the context of ethics) of his tradition, often under the label of "what people say". He uses that as a reference point, not a referee, so he is happy to amend and adjust that as appropriate in what he is discovering by his attention to how the world actually is - a sort of empiricism, in marked contrast to Plato.

Since I'm lazy, here a quotation from pp. 62 - 64:-

" 'Real' is an absolutely normal word, with nothing new-fangled or technical or highly specialized about it. It is, that is to say, already firmly established in, and very frequently used in, the ordinary language we all use every day. Thus in this sense it is a word which has a fixed meaning, and so can't, any more than can any other word which is firmly established, be fooled around with ad lib. Philosophers often seem to think that they can just 'assign' any meaning whatever to any word; and so no doubt, in an absolutely trivial sense, they can (like Humpty-Dumpty).

Certainly, when we have discovered how a word is in fact used, that may not be the end of the matter; there is certainly no reason why, in general, things should be left exactly as we find them; we may wish to tidy the situation up a bit, revise the map here and there, draw the boundaries and distinctions rather differently. But still, it is advisable always to bear in mind

(a) that the distinctions embodied in our vast and, for the most part, relatively ancient stock of ordinary words are neither few nor always very obvious, and almost never just arbitrary;
(b) that in any case, before indulging in any tampering on our own account, we need to find out what it is that we have to deal with; and
(c) that tampering with words in what we take to be one little corner of the field is always liable to have unforeseen repercussions in the adjoining territory. Tampering, in fact, is not so easy as is often supposed, is not justified or needed so often as is often supposed, and is often thought to be necessary just because what we've got already has been misrepresented."

The reference to Humpty-Dumpty is presumably a swipe at Ayer & co.

I wouldn't be surprised if he (or they) got the idea from Aristotle. At least, far from being a revolution, it seems that it has a reasonably respectable ancestry. But, of course, a revolution is so much more dramatic than a tradition..

Keeping on the track, Austin says that 'real' 'nor does it have a large number of different meanings-it is not ambiguous. ' I just don't understand why he says this. — javi2541997

You could say that it has a different meaning for each substantive it gets attached to. But what Austin is emphasizing is that it does the same job, i.e. has the same use, when attached to the substantives it gets attached to. One could quarrel with that, but there's no clear principle of individuation attached to either meanings or uses, so we can allow different applications of those terms.

Austin claims that 'real' is more understandable among the people than 'proper' 'genuine', 'true' 'authentic', etc. — javi2541997

If that's what he means to say, it is indeed hard to understand. I think he is not saying that but saying that "real" is an umbrella or basket for all those other terms. Perhaps more like the head of the family.

I don’t think it can be established that a perceiver is both perceiver and perceived. — NOS4A2

So you don't think that people can perceive themselves - be self-aware?

But if the medium, perceiver, is made to be the subject of our inquiry, then the thing perceived and the perception are incidental to the inquiry, and the silliness of this thread is avoided. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how one can separate three things, perceiver, perceived and perception. They are clearly interdependent, by definition.

The nervous system is not a medium, though, because it is a part of that which senses—the perceiver—not that which the perceiver senses. I guess my next question is: where does the perceiver begin and end? I doubt appealing to biology can furnish an answer in favor of the indirectness of perception. — NOS4A2

Yes, I think this is the way that your analysis has to go. But I don't think that it encourages us to believe that this approach is useful.

The problem I see is that there is no clear way of determining which philosophical theory is more right. — Janus

That doesn't mean that there is no way of determining which theory is more right, or less wrong.

Anything that has no intellectual appeal to virtually anyone will not "go" to be sure. — Janus

You have put your finger on the way to determine which theory is more right or less wrong. Now, how does one establish whether a theory has any intellectual appeal? By argument, perhaps?

There is, as you point out, also REM and other evidence that shows a great deal of activity during sleep. It looks as if something is happening. That seems to be why Malcolm's ideas are discounted. — Banno

In conversations, I found a reluctance to take scientific research on board. The problem here is partly that being a scientist does not make one immune from philosophical mistakes. What makes it even more difficult is that the distinction between ordinary language and science is distinctly permeable. REM is in some ways a technical, theoretical concept, but in others is a common sense observation.

But I don't see that the research can prove that the subject is experiencing something (in the required sense of experience) without also proving that the subject is also conscious. So we need to stop thinking of consciousness as binary. This is not contrary to common sense - half-asleep, half awake.

Research evidence does show a great deal of activity during sleep, and, by the same token, shows that sleepers are not in a normal state of consciousness.

Dreams do not fall foul of the Private Language Argument, since they are reported in ordinary language. But they make no sense unless sleep is not the same as unconsciousness.

There's room for an interesting speculation about why so many philosophers have been so resistant to even considering the philosophical implications of dreaming that they ignore these arguments.

Why not say they are dreaming? — Banno

I have no problem with that and I think that Malcolm (and the very few sympathizers) are wrong to assume/suggest that nothing is going on. But that just emphasizes the question what is going on in dreaming?

The central critique aimed at Malcolm's account is, as I understand it, that he insists that dreams occur (at least in their quintessential form) when one is soundly asleep, a definition not accepted by others, especially dream researchers. — Banno

What you say confuses me, because it doesn't seem to fit at all with what I understood Malcolm to be arguing. Malcolm's thesis is regarded as outrageous because he denies that people have experiences while they are asleep. The core of the argument is that to be asleep is to be unconscious, but to experience something is to be conscious, so the common sense of dreaming is self-contradictory.

The only facts of the matter are 1) that young children sometimes wake up convinced of impossibilities and have to be taught that they were dreams and 2) that people often wake up telling stories that seem to them (at the time they are telling the stories) to have happened to them while they were asleep. That impression - that things happened to them while they were asleep - is not evidence that anything did happen to them while they were asleep. On the contrary, the evidence is that nothing happened to them while they were asleep.

I wouldn't want to opine on the opinions of dream researchers. But I am under the impression that much of their data is gathered by observing people while they are asleep (and not talking) and, from time to time, waking them up to see whether they have anything to tell. Which is not evidence that they are experiencing anything while asleep - even though they may think it is.

I think this argument is good. It's weakness is the identification of sleep with unconsciousness. I don't think it is obvious even to common sense that sleep is the same thing as unconsciousness. There is a good deal of common sense observation which suggests that a sleeper can be, to some extent, conscious while asleep - and sleep research has a good deal to say about this. That opens up the possibility of reconciling, to some extent at least, common sense with this argument.

Cavell's idea is very interesting and it would be nice to see how it could be developed into a real part of philosophy - digging deeper into the reasons why scepticism or sense-data seem to be able to recover from refutation and sprout afresh. Rejoining philosophy after being out of touch for so long, it does seem plausible to suppose that some ideas arise from enduring tendencies in human thought, which are not based on the arguments. I didn't find his gestures towards Phenomenology convincing - and it seems that phenomenologists didn't either.

The reason you propose in this case makes sense to me. But I don't think it applies to, for example, Berkeley.

Our fears and desires are isolating us as the only way to maintain something certain (by pulling back from the world); but we don’t need everything to meet the criteria of certainty. — Antony Nickles

This looks very plausible. It also looks to me that you might have been reading Cavell?

Is anyone going to do a reading of VII? Or are we not done with VI. — Antony Nickles

As a final flourish, I would like to point out that this have been the point where Austin makes good on his comment that we are told to take it easy "really it's just what we've all believed all along. (There's the bit where you say it and the bit where you take it back.)" (Lecture 1 page 2) This makes it much harder to understand what the doctrine amounts to.

VII looks most interesting. I'm looking forward to what people make of it.

He is not talking about perception, he is discussing indirect and direct (here as they relate to seeing, reflecting, etc.); he accepts none of that. I must be a terrible writer. — Antony Nickles

I'm afraid it is me that is the terrible writer. I should not have allowed myself to use that term, though I meant by it no more than seeing/hearing/....

The point is that there is not one kind of evidence (direct or not; real or not). — Antony Nickles

Certainly. I should have put the point in a different way to make that plain.

I haven’t seen anything that would make me think Austin would concede that it was not false. — Antony Nickles

There's another tricky word. I'm only gesturing at the point that what's in question is not "ordinary", contingent falsity, but something more radical, in that Ayer uses "direct" and "indirect" in an incoherent way.

Ludwig V says that Austin might not have had any idea on Perception. I — Corvus

I'm glad you found a way of understanding what I was trying to say.

"sometimes direct, sometimes indirect, and that neither is always the case"-ism — Corvus

is indeed a mouthful. I would still resist calling that a theory and I would have included the proviso "if you accept his use (I don't say definition) of "direct" and "indirect"." Part of the issue is whether Ayer's use of those terms is coherent.

Your statement is based on a fallacy of false dichotomy. Surely there are more perceptual theories than just the two. — Corvus

Well, at the time, sense-datum theory was a staple of philosophy and was taught to and discussed by almost all analytic philosophers. In a sense, since Austin is rejecting the terms of the question, the third alternative would involve neither rejecting not accepting them

But still, if you know of another philosophical theory of perception, perhaps you could identify it?

After a little contemplation, I remember where I got this sense that something is just not right with this passage. From another linguistic philosopher, Norman Malcolm, in is book Dreaming, Chapter 18 "Do I know I am Awake", he says the following: — Richard B

I had the same feeling about this. Malcolm's take on dreaming has not been popular. Indeed, it has largely met the ultimate rejection - being ignored.

I would be delighted to indulge in a conversation about this, but I'm not inclined to think that he's not quite right about these cases shows that his overall argument is wrong. So I think it is off-topic.

Does this show that Austin drifted from the pure faith of linguistic philosophy? Or, that he may have other philosophical presuppositions hidden in his closet? — Richard B

Coming back to it now, I'm not sure how pure the faith of linguistic philosophy ever was.

Ayer resigns himself to only be able to be sure of facts about sense-data (to thus be certain by one, fixed standard because only one type of object, without the need of any talk of context). — Antony Nickles

I don't disagree with this. But then he seems to me someone who thinks he has found firm ground to stand on, but actually has positioned himself on a marsh. That is, the idea of direct, immediate experience doesn't do what he thinks it does.

Just want to clear this up (if I can). — Antony Nickles

I wouldn't disagree with this either. But I'm finding that his project is more complicated than I realized. However, if we pursue those issues here, we may well find that we never get back to the main point.

To attempt to clear up the direct/indirect issue, — Antony Nickles

I'm thinking that there is an argument in the background that is confusing people. It relates to Corvus' question

You still have not answered whether Austin was a direct realist or not. — Corvus

The question has a presupposition, which is in question. So it can't be answered. It's comparable to the traditional "Have you stopped beating your wife?" In this case, whether I answer yes or no, I commit to accepting that direct realism is a coherent possibility. But that's what's in question. If you accept Austin's ordinary language definition of direct and indirect perception, then he does accept that some perceptions are direct and others are not. But the meaning of "direct realism" in Ayer's text is different from that.

Ayer's official position is that all perception is indirect and dubiously realistic. The understanding of Ayer's position that I've come to in this discussion is that there is such a thing as direct perception - perception of sense-data - and the objects of this kind of perception are always real, in the sense that they are what they seem to be, but always unreal in that they are not what we would like to think they are - perceptions of "external" "objective" reality. Austin rejects that idea, not on the ground that it is false, but on the ground that it is incoherent.

Of course, there needs to be evidence under the scrutiny of judgment. I mean, it’s not like we can just make up anything. — Antony Nickles

"Evidence" needs to be interpreted here. It is not a matter of evidence of the kind that's appropriate to deciding whether unicorns exist or the prisoner is guilty. It is a question of the kind of evidence that is appropriate to deciding whether unicorns are possible or whether what the prisoner has done amounts to a crime.

I think it's more a matter of philosophers finding new and novel ways to imagine things; the "problem" only arises when the demand that there be just one "correct" way of viewing things is made. — Janus

You make us sound like SF writers. You can't mean that. But perhaps you mean new and novel ways to think (conceptualize) things. Well, some philosophers certainly do that and it can often be a good idea to break away from orthodox, traditional ways of thought. That's what Austin is trying to do here. Curiously enough, Ayer wrote (Language, Truth and Logic as exactly that. But that doesn't mean anything goes, does it?

My point was that, in thinking about perception in different ways, using different criteria for what would count as 'direct' and 'indirect', perception can be considered to be either direct or indirect. So my question is, given there is no fact of the matter regarding which is the case. what is the problem? — Janus

Well, it's not a question of the (empirical) fact of the matter. That's what makes this a philosophical discussion. I have time for

Phenomenologically speaking our perceptions certainly seem immediate. On the other hand. scientific analysis show perceptions to be highly mediated processes. Which is right? Well, they both are in their own ways. — Janus

This does pose the question what we are to make of, how we are to understand, what we are beginning to learn from physiology and psychology about perception. I think that is a real question. But it still treats perceptions as if they were objects and as if those processes produced a final result, thus allowing Dennett to claim that consciousness is an illusion. What if perception is an activity? What if perceptions are no more objects than a magnetic field or a rainbow or an orbit or heat? BTW, none of those things are events, either.

Direct and indirect are just words i.e. adjectives and adverbs describing how perception worked. One can say, I can see it directly, indirectly, clearly, dimly, sharply, indubitably, lucidly, positively, distinctly, manifestly, conspicuously, translucently, unmistakably, evidently, or precisely, .... etc etc. — Corvus

"Direct" and "indirect" are antonyms. The Cambridge dictionary defines "antonym" as "a word that means the opposite of another word" and provides, by way of example "two antonyms of "light" are "dark" and "heavy". The opposite of "antonym" is "synonym".

Folk might quite successfully agree to "meet at the barn". — Banno

Well, yes. But then, they could equally well agree to meet at the church. Always subject to the proviso there is a the context of a mutual understanding of where to meet. But in the context of a church-barn or barn-church, that understanding is harder to presuppose.

Doubtless Gettier had read Austin. — Banno

I would like to think so. Though the Stanford Encyclopedia cites Alvin Goldman as the source, in 1976. But he might easily have read Austin as well.

Phenomenologically speaking our perceptions certainly seem immediate. On the other hand. scientific analysis show perceptions to be highly mediated processes. Which is right? Well, they both are in their own ways. — Janus

I think that's right. It could be argued that we cannot expect "ordinary language" to be adapted to cater for this (relatively) new kind of knowledge - yet. This does seemm to open up the possibility of a technical account. However, talk of "perceptions" could easily encourage us to think of our perceptions as the end stage of a process. But they aren't pictures - or at least anything like an internal picture or model leads immediately to the question how we perceive that, and an infinite regress.

Here it is the fear of a skeptical moral world transferred to our best case scenario, a physical object. — Antony Nickles

I'm inclined to attribute Ayer's approach to Cartesian scepticism, rather than to any ethical question. However that may be, it is interesting that Ayer seems to back off the radical implications of his theory by denying them; Berkeley does exactly the same thing, in his rather different way. Surely that must show some sort of unease about the theory. (I didn't find the same thing in Hume.)

I would suggest that the reason Austin goes ballistic at this point is because any possibility of successfully refuting the theory is closed if each of us can say whatever we like and deny that we were asserting the consequences. I can sympathize with that. More soberly, it at least trivializes the theory.

I think it's more a matter of philosophers finding new and novel ways to imagine things; the "problem" only arises when the demand that there be just one "correct" way of viewing things is made. — Janus

It is possible that more than one way of thinking about things is valid, in one way or another. But surely some sort of selection will be needed sooner or later.

So there's no single view of him that represents a consensus. — frank

Yes, that's to be expected. Paradoxically, that's also why it pays to read the original text. There's room for a large discussion there. I'm not sure that the range of different reactions is greater in his case than in others.

Does that mean there's something wrong with my finding a flaw in what he says, even though I'm very much in sympathy with the project? Aren't we supposed to think these things through for ourselves - with the help of the commentators?

There are phenomenal experiences – let’s call them perceptions – and these same experiences can refer to, or be of, objects in the world which have names and, often, are constituted in interesting ways by smaller, more fundamental components. — J

That sounds interesting. But I don't want to adjourn to another thread to pursue it right now. I wouldn't want to dismiss James out of hand, but for now I would like to stick to Austin. Your summary bristles with ideas that need further explanation and articulation.

All perception is indirect via sense data and sense-organ which carries the sensed information into the brain via sense organs. — Corvus

Doesn't this imply that perception of sense data or perhaps "the sensed information" is direct perception?

Direct and indirect are not some essential properties of existence or entities as some folks seem to think. — Corvus

That's intuitively correct. But doesn't that just mean that direct and indirect are not properties, but relations (or perhaps properties of relations)?

We could easily have used "mediated" or "medium-less" instead of direct or indirect. — Corvus

I think that, together with the idea of "raw" or "unabstracted" and "certain", that is exactly what proponents of sense-data mean by direct. Whether those ideas make sense is another question.

Plane from London to Sydney is a direct flight, if it flies without stopping anywhere during flight, takes off from London and lands in Sydney then it is a direct flight.  If it stops in some other airports such as Dubai or Singapore, then it would be an indirect flight. — Corvus

Yes. The meaning of "direct" and "indirect" is determined by the context. The sense-datum theorist is like someone who insists that what we call the direct flight is actually indirect because it follows a route on the journey. That's a problem.